KEEPING THE FAITH / Bay Area band revamps and goes back on the road

MICHAEL SNYDER, CHRONICLE STAFF WRITER

Published
4:00 am PST, Sunday, March 5, 1995

Singer Mike Patton sits in a Mission District restaurant at lunchtime and attacks a platter of huevos rancheros. He's fueling up for the last rehearsal before the start of a European concert tour by Faith No More, the explosive, eclectic San Francisco rock quintet that's in comeback mode after being MIA for a couple of years. There's a new album, a new guitarist and a new attitude.

Patton, in his mid-20s, has been the band's lead vocalist since its commercial breakthrough in 1989 with the million-selling album "The Real Thing" and the grandiose funk-metal single "Epic." Here's what Faith No More's success means to him:

"It's being able to go into any restaurant, order food and not worry about how you're going to pay for it," Patton said. "It's the traveling, getting out of the cocoon, leaving the hotel room, meeting people and seeing new places."

The typical Faith No More tour? A swing through Europe to support the 1992 release of the band's fourth album, "Angel Dust," was a brutal 53 shows in 59 days.

"It's hard to see as much as you'd like with our schedule on the road," Patton said, "but it's harder to do coke and f-- whores every night. Now, that's a full-time job."

Is this sedate guy, mildly contemptuous of the seamy, self-destructive rock-and-roll lifestyle, really Mike Patton -- the same long-haired wild man who was known to defecate on stage in the middle of a show?

Today, Patton's hair is short. With his wispy mustache and goatee, dark sweatshirt and jeans, he could have been mistaken for one of the blue-collar workers grabbing a burrito to go at the counter. This Patton is married, but too private a person to discuss his home life.

But on tour with the band, he's a different creature.

"You can get bored up there on stage, night after night," Patton said. "But it's an open forum where you can get away with almost anything, so you might as well do it. You s-- every day. What's the big deal?"

Ah, now this is more like the old Patton who, at 21, put his membership in the bizarre Eureka art- rock ensemble Mr. Bungle on hold to join Faith No More. At his first video shoot with the band during an I Beam gig, Patton was so energetic that he cracked a front tooth in half on his mike stand. Then, as the band covered the Black Sabbath number "War Pigs," Patton lost his footing, tumbled forward and smashed his hand against a broken bottle on the edge of the stage, severing a tendon.

"We got it all on film," he said with pride. Patton finished the show and, the next day, spent 5 1/2 hours in reconstructive microsurgery.

Back then, he was replacing Chuck Mosely, lead singer on Faith No More's first two albums and the infectious, sarcastic "We Care a Lot," which became a college radio hit and the band's signature song.

Patton also was following in the footsteps of Courtney Love, today the leader of Hole and widow of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. Love had preceded Mosely as the vocalist in Faith No More.

Therein lies a bit of irony: During the three years since the release of the Grammy-nominated "Angel Dust," Faith No More's fame has been eclipsed by the rise of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and other grunge-rock standard-bearers, as well as bands such as Hole.

Furthermore, Faith No More was hamstrung by internal tension that resulted in a major personnel change last year -- the departure of longtime guitarist Jim Martin, who had been in the lineup for a decade or so.

Now the band has an enthusiastic replacement for Martin, Dean Menta, and is poised to make noise with its fifth album -- "King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime."

Recorded in Woodstock and co- produced by the band and studio ace Andy Wallace (Nirvana, Soul Asylum, Alice in Chains, Bad Religion and White Zombie), it's a magnificent, sprawling 14-song opus. It will hit the stores in a limited-edition vinyl version March 14. The CD and cassette release is slated for March 28.

"King for a Day" is an utter triumph. The lyrics are enigmatic, sarcastic, provocative and incisive. But certain dark strains seep through on the hard-charging "Get Out" ("What if there is no more fun to be had . . . Cut my losses and get out now"), "Ricochet" ("It's always funny until someone gets hurt . . . And then it's just hilarious") and "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies."

On the glam-infused title song, Patton goes from menacing whisper on the verse to full-throated, melodic belting on the chorus, while the musicians counter with acoustic guitars, synthesized strings, an articulated bass line and a slam-bang electric guitar epiphany. There's speedcore, some thrash, a country-style number ("Take This Bottle") and some serious noisemaking ("Cuckoo for Caca").

The single, "Digging the Grave," is rowdy, up-tempo hard rock. "Evidence" is a '70s soul ballad crooned by Patton in the tradition of FNM's 1993 cover of the Commodores' "Easy"; "Caralho Voador" is almost a bossa nova cribbed from the Jobim-Gilberto songbook. As dreamy and ethereal as a Bryan Ferry reverie, "Just a Man" is a slice of romantic self-examination that closes the album. This is a band that refuses to be pigeonholed.

Before the new album could be recorded, Faith No More had to part company with Martin. The official word was creative differences. The first replacement, Trey Spruance, who recorded "King for a Day" with the band, is, like Patton, a member of Mr. Bungle. But the friendship with Patton wasn't enough to persuade Spruance to sign on for the duration.

At the first word of extensive touring, Spruance backed out. Luckily, Menta, a member of the Bay Area band Duh, had been on the road with FNM as a keyboard technician. He knew the material, and he played a mean guitar, even joining the band during sound checks. So Menta is in, joining Patton, keyboard player Roddy Bottum, bass player Billy Gould and drummer Mike Bordin.

"I know Trey, and I told the other guys that this might happen," Patton said. "Touring is a weird thing. It's like getting married to four different people. . . . It's an adventure, if you're into it. It's understandable that someone wouldn't want to commit for up to two years."

Three weeks ago, drummer Bordin -- sitting in the Mount Davidson home that he shares with his wife and their cat, Chef -- spoke about the band's problems with Martin.

"After years of a guy not taking suggestions from the rest of us, it was great to work with Trey, who listened. We were trying to do different things, and (Martin) wasn't keeping pace. We felt we could get better as a band with someone else in the guitar slot."

Bordin, 32, is a UC Berkeley grad with a massive mane of dreadlocks that hangs below his waist. He is the only native San Franciscan in FNM, but all of the members live in town.

Gould and Bordin have been the heartbeat of the band since it came together in the early '80s as Faith No Man. Bottum, Martin and, eventually, Gould's friend Mosely -- a keyboard player who fell into the role of singer -- rounded out the band under its current name.

In the mid-'80s, "We Care a Lot," Faith No More's first recording, was issued on the local independent label Mordam. It eventually led to a major-label deal with Slash-Reprise, but it also led to a misconception that the band was a thrash-funk or heavy-metal outfit.

"We've always been committed to stretching ourselves," Bordin said. "All of us have a tremendous thirst for music, and no one in the band has narrow tastes."

That interest in diversity explains why the band was attracted to Patton.

"Michael has a hell of a singing voice," Bordin said. "When we heard the tape of his band, we knew he was the guy we wanted. Mr. Bungle was doing everything from heavy metal to ska and then branching into music that sounded like it came from a James Bond film."

Somehow finding a few free moments, Patton has just completed work on a second Mr. Bungle album for the Warner Bros. label. Bottum has a side project of his own with the group Star 69. All of that is being set aside for now.

According to Bordin, "The big question for us after the past few years was 'Do we still have something to say as a band?' We couldn't continue if we felt we were wasting people's time or ripping ourselves off.

"This is the first time in the life of the band that I've been 100 percent happy with an album. Why is it so diverse? Why not? Mingus never made a record that sounded the same. Neither did the Beatles. We're just using our tools better. We've grown up. We realize that you can succeed on your own terms instead of chasing some ideal of success."

For his part, Patton is raring to go. "It's a great feeling to want to get out there and play again," he said.

Patton realizes that the real test of the new material will be in the live arena. "It's going to be work -- a year and a half, maybe two years on the road. But they're like someone else's songs until you play them in front of an audience."

"In this line of work, you can lose your hearing, get prematurely old and crazy," Bordin said. "Touring takes over your life. On the road, you have a lot of unsupervised time. There are perils: the drinking, the dope and the diseases, but we've done all right. We're adults. We all live in a real sober fashion.

"Sure, there's a toll taken by the physical exertion of playing music. We give up our bodies every night. Patton has had to deal with shin splints, because he jumps so hard. But there's no greater high than being on stage."